The things that last

My parents’ home is a capsule suspended in time.

Each visit, I find little things that hold the remnant energy of a past self, ones that glitter with the potential of what once was and possibility of what could have been.

A part of me believes this is my mother’s way of holding onto the versions of her children’s little selves and a way to remind us – this is who we once were.

There are tiny things that exist here: unassuming memorabilia that unlock core memories within me. Distant, flickering, hazy, but undeniably real.

One such thing is a tube of Faber-Castell colored pencils from 2005.

I bought this for an art competition and I wanted to show my maximum potential with the best art supplies possible.

I remember standing in that store aisle, weighing my options with the kind of meticulous deliberation I still carry into every shopping decision (just ask my husband). Thirty-six colors or forty-eight? Pencils in a box or in a tube? These questions felt monumental then, the way small choices do when you’re young and every decision seems to echo into some unknowable future.

I chose thirty-six colors in the cylindrical tube. It was slightly more expensive, but it seemed practical. I remember my reasoning so clearly: the tube would be easier to carry around in my school bag, easier to store the pencils, and unlike the cardboard box, it wouldn’t break down. As a result, I wouldn’t lose my colored pencils, which was a common issue for me at the time.

My parents had always made sure I took care of my things properly and didn’t lose them due to carelessness. They wanted me to appreciate everything I had in my life. The tube felt like a promise I was making to them, to myself: I will take care of this.

Little me decided, and rightfully so, that this cylindrical tube would be a much better choice.

Twenty years later, I have proof I made the right decision.

The tube has outlived its expected lifespan, survived multiple moves, and now sits in my son’s hands. I’ve taken it from my parents’ home, this artifact from a capsule in time, and passed it forward.

At this point, I can’t guarantee the ongoing sturdiness and longetivity of the colored pencils themselves (mostly because I’ve given them to my toddler). Some are worn to nubs, others still sharp. But the container? It endures. It’s still such a simple thing to carry around, proven useful even in chaotic and sometimes destructive toddler hands.

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This entire incident has made me better appreciate my decision-making process and feel more secure in it.

There’s something quietly validating about realizing that younger you knew something older you is only now beginning to understand: that the small choices matter, that practicality has its own poetry, that thinking ahead isn’t overthinking, it’s care.

I’ve been turning this moment over in my mind, trying to understand what it means beyond the simple sentimentality of it all.

Here’s what keeps circling back: At the time, I didn’t think it would last this long. I definitely didn’t imagine I would be handing it to my future child. That possibility didn’t even exist in my mind. I was just a girl trying to solve an immediate problem: how do I keep my colored pencils safe? How do I not disappoint my parents by losing another thing?

But that small act of care, that tiny moment of choosing durability, rippled forward in ways I couldn’t have predicted.

Can we ever truly know which decisions will matter?

The butterfly effect isn’t just about chaos theory and hurricanes. Sometimes it’s quieter than that. Sometimes it’s about a cylindrical tube that fits perfectly in a school bag, then in a moving box, then in a toddler’s curious hands. Sometimes it’s about the lessons we inherit without knowing we’re inheriting them: take care of your things, think ahead, appreciate what you have.

I think about all the decisions I’m making now, in this moment, that I can’t see the full shape of yet. The rituals I’m creating with my son, the objects I’m choosing to keep or discard, the values I’m trying to pass forward. Which ones will he carry with him? Which choices am I making today that will show up in his life twenty years from now, evidence of something I couldn’t have known I was building?

The truth is, we make hundreds of tiny decisions every day, and most of them disappear into the fabric of our lives. We choose the cardboard box, and it falls apart, and we move on. But some choices, inexplicably, wonderfully, become the architecture of who we are.

And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we get to see the proof.

The tube sits on my son’s table now, still sturdy, still doing its job. When I watch him pull out the pencils to draw, I think about that girl in the store aisle, practical and careful, making a choice she thought was just about art supplies.

Maybe that’s the lesson here. Not that we should agonize over every decision, trying to predict which ones will echo into the future. But that we should trust the care we put into the small moments. That practicality can be its own form of love. That the things we choose to preserve, even in the tiniest ways, have a way of preserving us right back.

Years from now, maybe my son will find something like this in his own home, a capsule suspended in his time. Maybe he’ll remember something from his own childhood that unlocks a core memory for him. Or maybe not.

But I like to think it will matter. I like to think that care compounds across time, that the small decisions we make with intention create a kind of inheritance we can’t always name but can definitely feel.

Twenty years later, I’m holding the proof in my hands.

And it’s blown my mind wide open.